(Alliance News) - Stenprop Ltd on Friday reported a sharp rise in profit for its recently ended financial year, driven by a considerable gain in the fair value of investment properties, despite a dip in rental income.
For the year that ended March 31, the industrial-focused real estate investment trust posted a pretax profit of GBP55.9 million, more than tripled from GBP16.1 million the year before. Stenprop's profit performance was helped by a GBP36.3 million fair value gain on investment properties.
However, the trust's net rental income slipped 3.0% year-on-year to GBP32.0 million from GBP33.0 million, due to a decline from UK urban logistics properties and from properties in Germany.
As at March 31, net asset value per share was GBP1.48, up 8.0% from GBP1.37 the same date the prior year, while Stenprop's portfolio valuation rose 9.3% year-on-year to GBP582.3 million from GBP532.6 million, driven by a reduction in vacancy to 6.3% from 9.0%.
On a like-for-like basis, the portfolio's value rose 6.3%.
Stenprop declared a dividend of 6.75 per share, in line with the year before.
"This has been a year of strong results and continued transformation for Stenprop. A combination of the efforts of our asset management team, the strength of occupier demand for our multi-let industrial space and the quality of our portfolio, led to a 10.1% increase, on a like-for-like basis, in the valuation of our MLI portfolio and underpinned like-for-like MLI rental growth of 5.6% for the year," said Chief Executive Officer Paul Arenson.
Shares in Stenprop were down 1.9% at 158.00 pence on Friday in London, while its Johannesburg shares remained untraded at ZAR30.32.
By Dayo Laniyan; dayolaniyan@alliancenews.com
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